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How to add Latest Windows 7 Convenience Update in a SCCM Image

For this post, we will be talking about how to do a SCCM Windows 7 convenience rollup image creation. A lot of companies still use Windows 7 and have not yet migrated to Windows 10. So, in the spirit of still having Windows 7, I thought I would write up a post to help fellow administrators.

You may have seen that a few weeks ago, Microsoft released a new convenience rollup for Windows 7 SP1. This convenience rollup is meant to make our lives easier when deploying fresh instances of Windows 7. As stated on the Technet article, it contains all the security and non-security fixes released since Service Pack 1, up to April 2016. Officially, the convenience update is released to help us administrators catch up our deployments of Windows 7 faster, have us have a Windows 7 release that’s consistent with the latest code levels, support benefits and so on. But, with this update, we are also ready for a Windows 10 migration since we have all required pre-upgrade updates installed. In short, this has all the requirements to be a Service Pack, but since Microsoft is moving away from SPs, we are not calling it so.

Once your download has completed, let’s simply add a new Task Sequence. For this post, I am assuming that you do not have a Build and Capture Task Sequence. You may already have one. If that’s the case, you can tweak your existing TS instead. Let’s go ahead and create our Build and Capture Task Sequence :

Open the SCCM Console

Go to Software Library / Operating Systems / Task Sequences

On the ribbon, click on Create Task Sequence

Give your TS a meaningful name, click Next

In the Install Windows pane, browse to your Windows 7 image or WIM file and choose the appropriate flavor in Image Index. Should you wish to have a specific local administrator password, enter it here, press Next

Since this is a build we are doing, we do not need to join it to a domain since it could get polluted with unwanted parameters such as GPO configurations. For now, leave it in a workgroup, press Next

In the Install Configuration Manager pane, leave the settings as is, press Next

On the Include Updates pane, choose Available for installation, press Next

Unless you have any specific applications you wish to include in your build, choose Next

On the System preparation pane, press Next

On the Image Properties pane, set your image properties, press Next

Set your image capture path and the account used for to access this folder. Ensure that your account has the rights to write in that folder as well, press Next

On the Summary pane, review your selection, review and complete the wizard

Creating the Convenience Update Package

Now that we have the Task Sequence up and running, we want to create the package to add in it.

Go to Software Library / Application Management / Packages

Right-click Packages and select Create Package

Fill in the fields with all required information and point it to your source folder containing the update, press Next

We will not need to create a program for now as we will be manually typing the command line in our Task Sequence. Although, it would still work. Press Next

Confirm the settings and press Next.

Press Close to validate.

Distribute the package to the appropriate DP

Tweaking the Build and Capture Task Sequence

We will now apply some basic customization to our task sequence to better suit our needs.

Go back to Software Library / Operating Systems / Task Sequences

Right-click your Build and Capture Task Sequence and Edit

Since this is a Windows 7 Task Sequence, I always preferred to deploy them on a “classic” Format and Partition Disk. Therefore, you can either disable or remove both Partition steps and add a Format and Partition Disk with 100% remaining space on disk (1).

I also add a Task Sequence Variable with the variable name OSDPreserveDriveLetter set to false (2) because I am using the default Windows 7 wim file and this typically installs the OS on the D: Drive. Much more details on that can be found here.

Below the Setup Windows and Configuration Manager step, we will add the Convenience Rollup installation step.

Don’t forget to also add the package we just created to your Convenience Rollup step or else the installation will fail as it will not be able to locate the content.

Your Task Sequence should now look like this:

Deploy your Task Sequence

We will now deploy our Task Sequence :

Change the parameter here to make sure your task sequence is available to Configuration Manager clients, media and PXE

On the Scheduling tab, enable Schedule when this deployment will be available. We won’t need to expire this since we will most likely need to rerun it in the future. Also, we don’t need an assignment schedule, so we will leave that blank. Press Next

On the User Experience tab, let’s leave all the options default as they don’t bring anything useful for a Build and Capture

On the Alerts tab, if your environment uses Alerts, configure them as you see fit. Press Next

On the Distribution Points tab, make sure your Deployment Options are set to Download content locally when needed by the running task sequence. Press Next

Finish up the validation and press Close

Deploying the Task Sequence on a Test Machine

We are now ready to have all of this deployed to a test machine. Import a new bare metal virtual machine or reuse one that you already have in your environment in your OSD Build and Capture collection.

Boot it up either via Network boot (PXE) or boot media :

On the Select a task sequence to run, choose your Build and Capture TS. Press Next

If all goes well, one of the last steps to be executed will be the Capture the Reference Machine step

Loading the captured WIM in SCCM

After the capture has completed on our test machine, we now have a Windows 7 image that include the Convenience Rollup. We can go back to the SCCM server and move the WIM file to our SCCM content store.

In the console, go to Software Library / Operating System / Operating System Images

Click Add Operating System Image button in the Ribbon

Browse to the path where you stored your captured wim

Fill in the Name, Version and Comment fields as you see fit. Press Next

On the Summary tab, press Next

On the Completion tab, press Close

Distribute the image on your Distribution Points

We will now create our TS for the final test, which is the deployment of the captured image on a real machine.

Go to Software Library / Operating Systems / Task Sequences

Click on the Create Task Sequence ribbon button

This time we choose Install and existing image package

On the Task Sequence Information tab, fill in the fields and press Next

(1) Choose your imported WIM. Since this is a captured image, you should only have a single image index (2). Untick BitLocker (3) unless you use it in your infrastructure. Finally, once again, set your local administrator password (4).

Since this time we are deploying the our image is a real test, we will join it to our domain

Once more, unless you have anything special to set for your client installation, leave these steps as is

I won’t be using USMT. Disable everything here. You can see this post if you wish to integrate USMT to your task sequence. Since it’s not the focus of my post, I will forego this step

We want all available patches to be installed

I won’t be pushing out applications for my test, but you could do so here

Complete the wizard with 2 more Next

As we have previously done, we will Deploy our Task Sequence to a Collection

Choose your Collection and press Next

Make your Deployment Available to ConfigMgr Clients, Media and PXE

Choose a Deployment availability

I leave these settings default

Set your Alerts settings, press Next

Set your Distribution Points settings, press Next

Complete the wizard

Boot up your test virtual machine

Choose your new Task Sequence

And if all goes well, you should now have a patched Windows 7 client which includes the Convenience Rollup.

You can go ahead and add all your enterprise specific applications such as Office, Adobe Reader and so on.